It’s a great time to be a data scientist in the field of marketing. The power of all the data we collect—online and offline behavioral data, location data and touchpoint data—can now be combined with the power of predictive modeling, allowing us to derive customer insights for individualized communication with customers and prospects.

I recently co-authored a peer-reviewed article for Applied Marketing Analytics with my colleague Stephan Horvath called “Intelligent Profiles and Segments = Pure Power for Business” that discusses our process for making this happen.

It all begins with data

Consumers have high expectations that we will interact with them as individually as possible. They expect relevant offers. They despise interruptive advertising without an obvious benefit to them. Only those organizations that know their customers and prospects well can build profitable relationships. That’s why, in addition to the inventory data that every company stores in its customer database, we collect data about the online activities of customers and prospects in social media, their registrations in online forms, their usage data from websites and apps, their click behavior and interactions, their completed or aborted purchase transactions and their preferred devices and browsers. We also maintain offline data—from in-store visits, from responses to offline campaigns, and from regional peculiarities and market environments. We track offline campaign responses, point-of-sale data, and geo-location information. Of course, we continue to add many more data points all the time.

The data helps create a profile

Using descriptive, exploratory analysis, unsupervised learning techniques and predictive modeling, we create precise individual profiles from all this data. Individual profiles allow marketers to communicate to customers and prospects one-to-one. Every part of the campaign can be completely personalized to where they are in their customer journey.

Then we make profiles Intelligent

Profiles become really powerful when we combine them with predictive analytics and other techniques as a basis for further analysis. Used in this way, they help us identify the potential for cross-selling and upselling; finding multipliers, influencers and brand ambassadors; optimizing communication channels’ mix and content; discovering trends early; reducing waste; counteracting churn risk and more.

Since the application of Intelligent Profiles and Segments, an automotive client has saved 28% of the cost of product brochures and discounts. This is money they can spend for other marketing activities. The sales figures and return on investment continue to rise steadily.

Conclusion

Companies not only benefit from Intelligent Profiles and Segments by the satisfaction and loyalty of their customers and prospects, but also by finding ways to monetize the knowledge gained by analysis. They may be able to operate lucrative affiliate marketing programs, use insights for their own innovative management (e. g., data-driven products and services) or optimize processes and minimize fraud. This added value will help companies using Intelligent Profiles and Segments to remain competitive and sustainable. The better we get at creating profiles, the better the experience is for the consumer. One day we can achieve true one-to-one relevancy.

If you’d like to see more details about how we create and use Intelligent Profiles, you can get a copy of Applied Marketing Analyticshere.